Pages

Monday, March 12, 2012

Ads: Behind the Scenes for The Guardian's Three Little Pigs Ad

"It was clear that BBH needed to tell a story to demonstrate the news cycle. But which one? "We couldn't pick a current-affairs story for fear of it dating," said David Kolbusz, creative director. "And writing a revisionist history of a historical event seemed insensitive." So they went with fairytales. BBH also created scripts for "Humpty Dumpty," "Hansel & Gretel" and "Cinderella." But Mr. Rusbridger is a big Orwell fan, so the "Animal Farm" parallel won out.

Creatives studied trailers that gave the most plot away -- "Girl With The Dragon Tattoo," for example. Mr. Ledwidge also wanted the spot to feel like a trailer to a big movie, something like "The Dark Knight," for example. "I liked that the film inhabited its own parallel universe that was familiar but also allowed the viewer to embrace elements of fantasy," he said. "A mashup of old-fashioned nursery rhymes with a slightly futuristic contemporary world." Mr. Ledwidge looked at nursery-rhyme illustrations from the 1920s to the 1950s and based the costumes around those. The pig heads were cast from original molds from the Royal Ballet Co.'s production of "Beatrix Potter." The spot was filmed over two days, in two 20-hour shoots." (For Full Article and video).

This is an incredible ad. It is beautifully shot, very funny, and packs a wallop of truth. It reminds me of Jasper Fforde's Nursery Crime books, which set fairy tale crimes in a police procedural context. Granted, the conceit of the pigs' villainy is not a new idea (The True Story of the Three Little Pigs), but it certainly gets it's point across. While I think this was the best tale to choose, I would love to have seen the "Humpty Dumpty," "Hansel and Gretel" and "Cinderella" versions.

The article also contains an old advertisement, demonstrating how viewing an event from three points of view can give you very different impressions as to what happened. Very smart. I am a fan of The Guardian.